X-Ray Spex was a group of music British Punk which had a short but influential existence between 1976 and 1979.

History

The group was composed of the singer Poly Styrene (born Marion Elliot), of the Guitariste Jak Airport (Stafford Jack), of the Bassiste Paul Dean, B.P Hurding with the battery and of Lora Logic (born Susan Whitby) to the Saxophone. The presence of the latter instrument is rather atypical in the musical tradition of the punk movement (except at French Lucrate Milk or Suicide Romeo), and it is this instrument which will do one of the distinctive elements of the group and its identity.

Another distinctive and typical element of X-Ray Spex was the strident and unmatched voice of the singer, Poly Styrene. As a Elliot Husband, Poly Styrene carried out a first individual reggae for GTO Records in 1976, Silly Billy , which was not classified in the British charts. Born in 1957 with Brixton, London, parents English and Somalia NS, Poly Styrene became the emblematic figure of the group and a singer impossible to circumvent of the punk mobility of this time. Contrary to conventions and codes of seduction, Poly Styrene carried crowns on the teeth and declared one day: “If somebody tries to make ego a sex-symbol, I shave the head tomorrow. ” Although X-Ray Spex existed only between the middle of the year 1976 and 1979, they carried out five simple and an album.

The album and the title of simple will be respectively classified 30^e and 19^e in the London charts, and Oh Bondage, Up Yours! will be regarded as a song worship of the group. It was not reproduced at the origin on the album, but will be added there then. The group never had promotion apart from the United Kingdom, and the album Germ Free Adolescents was distributed to the the United States only starting from 1992. Exhausted by the rounds, Poly Styrene will leave the group in 1979 to carry out an album solo, Translucence , before joining the movement Hare Krishna (what also Lora Logic did, in the same way, after having formed a group of the name of Essential Logic).

Discography

Individual

• Oh Bondage, Up Yours , 1977
• The Day The World Turned Day-Glo , 1978
• Identity , 1978
• Germ Free Teenagers , 1978
• Flammable Highly , 1979

Albums

• Germ Free Teenagers , 1978
• Conscious To consume , 1995

Bonds external

• '' X-Ray Spex '', the official site

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